Gayatri

To write is to remember. But each remembrance, each reminiscence tints the beautiful past with colors of the present. And so, I'm ever-afraid to write about certain things.

There are such things: things that exist so separate, so independent, from everything else that I don't dare write them down. Things such as walking next to you around Lakeside just as a twilight was cooking atop Phewa; and where a neon ferris wheel spun slicing the sky. Things such as watching you board the bus to your city, 9AM. Words had failed me then, and I’d forgotten the language of the throat. Instead I had hoped, and perhaps so had you, that we'd be able to decipher the language of longing that only our eyes speak.

You’ve given me so many memories like this that, like a child carrying an armful of flowers I fear that I’ll unwittingly spill them; let some fall to the ground and walk on, unaware. I might drop a little daisy of that smile you only smile when I make a silly joke. Or a sunflower from that sunny morning when you sat on my lap and told me the stories of your life. I might walk on even as I’ve dropped a red chrysanthemum of all the candlelight conversations; or a white lily from the time you danced under the moonlight; the Lamachaur streets were empty and I walked, enchanted, carrying pastries with little cherries on top.

I’m deeply terrified that I’ll forget any of these precious memories, yet also endlessly afraid that writing them down will reduce them to mere words. Vacuous words that never ever mean what I want to say.

In times like these, I have to remind myself that, since Gayatri is wholly and utterly mine, we’ll continue to make yet more of such memories. So it's okay to let the relentless timeriver steal a little daisy here, a little marigold there. Hell, let it steal entire bouquets. After all, with the love that you give me, we can easily conjure gardens full of the most beautiful flowers at whim for the rest of reality.

I love you